Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · June 4, 2024

convene for the durm county commissioner's meeting it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of History we stand on the stolen ancestrial lands of the Kataba IMO okichi Shakari and tuscaro peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival we acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the dis osition of indigenous peoples from their homelands their resilience in the face of such adversity as a is a testament to their strength and spirit may we humbly honor the ancestors and Elders of those Nations both past and presents by committing ourselves to fostering understanding healing and justice for all that inhabit the land let us walk forward toward let us walk forward together with Open Hearts acknowledging the past and embracing the future Guided by compassion respect and unity if there is nothing from the county manager we will go ahead and proceed I also want to publicly thank my colleagues for their support on yesterday and also thank uh commissioner Carter for stepping in uh in my absence we will begin the first presentation with the community innovision and support services I'm looking at the clerk and the presentation is already prepped and

ready my microphone now works I can vacate this seat and go back to my own and you all can proceed good afternoon everyone uh my name is Crystal Harris I'm the director for Community intervention and support services and today I'll just be kind of providing an update to you all we have not presented to the board um since early last year I believe um so today I'm just going to kind of give you an idea of where we are um right now um there have been some changes since we um presented last year um provide some programmatic updates and then kind of give you a look ahead um what CIS looks like moving forward this is our current um organization chart um since the last time we presented um I did add we did have a new position um that was added to our department which is our community support manager um Mr Brooks is responsible for um seeking um employment

and education opportunities for all of our participants in our programs um he also will be um leading our gain reduction strategy steering committee which was transitioned from um jsd to ciss last year as well there was a change with project build we eliminated the supervisor position and created another Outreach worker um so now project build is actually fully staffed um for the first time in a long time as well as with Bull City united we made an adjustment where there used to be two managers um but we reclassed one of the manager positions to a supervisor and we split it up where um our manager now manages the violence interrupts as well as a supervisor and then we have a supervisor specifically for the Outreach workers our data analyst position is still vacant but I have applications that I'm reviewing and hope to bring someone on before the end of this month so we'll start with our first program which is Bull City United um of

course it initially was um created um in 2016 if I'm not mistaken um and started with two census tracks which was our fed Street area and McDougle Terrace and it was based on the data um from dur Police Department in 2021 the city decided to increase their investment and expanded um and added a four additional census tracks to include Main Street area corn Wallace Oxford Manor and Southside um that expansion also included some positions a total of 18 including a supervisor five Outreach workers and 12 violence interrupts which brings that program to having a total of 25 staff um The Bull City United program follows the Cure violence model um they have three um basic parts of that model which is to detect and interrupt um and that's basically to try to prevent retaliations of any shootings that happen identify and treat that's where we provide Outreach um in case management to um the highest risk

individuals and then mobilize and that's to mobilize the community change their Norms so we do um have a shooting response for any shootings that happen within our target areas this map just shows um what the total um sensus tracks what they look like most of them are in the kind of downtown area of Durham um but we have one that's in the northern part um which is the Oxford Manor um location so far these are numbers for quarters one through three of fiscal year 23 24 of person shot I do want to include that these are person shot in the Target area not in the C census tract um so you could kind of see that person shot in our census tract um 1304 has increased um tremendously from before um they are averaging about four four to eight um shootings throughout

this fiscal year and that area is our corn Wallace area um we also have our blue blue which is our um Main Street area that has also increased um as the quarters have gone on um quarter 2 was the most for both the corn wace area as well as the fille street um location as well the homicides that we've had most of the target areas have not had homicides um but, 1400 which is our um which is the McDougal Terrace area has um had to um in Quarter Two um we know that that number has for the next quarter that we have quarter 4 that will be increased as well um but for most of the um most of the census tracks uh target areas did not have any homicides as far as this fiscal year so

far so mediations are part of the Cur violence model um and mediations are basically um our violence interrupt doing Street Outreach um working with highest risk individuals trying to mitigate any type of conflict that may be Brewing that we know of um to try to keep from having shootings and so for so far this year for the fiscal year we've had 698 um mediations some of the program highlights um last year in July we hosted the safe summer community resource Fair um we had plent several of our Community Partners come out out from dur parks and W um we had some folks from public health DSS come out to provide resources to um each of our target areas so we have one in each area um each event in each area we participated with corn Wallace Community to give out essential supplies as well as the Oxford Mana trunka treat we've hosted two participant events as well as our annual thanks forgiving event um in

in November and our week of Peace in January um last Sun last Saturday this past Saturday started our safe summer for this year and so it's happening this last Saturday in the 15th the 22nd and the 29th will be our dates for this this summer project build is our durm County gang Intervention Program um this model we use is the comprehensive gang model um it provides services for a individuals ages 14 to 21 who are at high risk of gang involvement um we utilize Street Outreach workers as well um they provide 101 case management um we also provide skill building opportunities um to get youth um to connect youth to school and employment opportunities we have an intervention team where we meet at least I think it's every other week at least twice a month we meet and it's kind of basically we have a table of individuals that engage

with the youth that are on our case loads so we have representatives from the um heart program from from the school system from Juvenile Justice from DSS from um Durham Police as well as the sheriff's office and we basically go through um participants we may have a list of maybe seven or eight every meeting and we just kind of talk about where they are what additional resources are needed for this individual how we can make sure that they're getting what they need um and that is the biggest part part of our comprehensive gang model project Bill highlights as I stated we are fully staffed at the moment we have a program manager a lead worker and then six um Outreach workers to include one bilingual we actually have two even though one is actually a bilingual position our jcpc funded position is also a bilingual um individual we hosted our comprehensive gang model training about three weeks ago because we have so many new staff as well as myself um since the training was um held in 2020 um I decided to bring

that training back to our to our staff and we included Our Community Partners who are on our intervention team meeting so we also had Bull City United our community manager community support manager and our My Brothers Keeper present so total we had about 65 participants in this training um we felt it necessary to include everyone that's going to be working with us with this program so everyone knows what their role is as being a part of the intervention team meeting a part of that training was also about our gain reduction strategy which is kind of also how project bill was brought out of the gain reduction strategy with the county and the city so that training was also held um Incorporated within this it was a three-day training for everyone this year we had the opportunity to incorporate some new programming um in years past a lot of our program was very recreational focused and so we um we decided that we needed to do more skill building um and pro-social skills for our youth because the youth have changed um since the program started so we wanted to kind of

0 so we've had a lot of new um Partners including standup speakout which is one of our um programs that the K this youth really enjoyed um and so we have been able to expand that we started out I believe with a six week program with them and we were able to extend it to two additional six weeks with the youth because they really enjoyed that programming we recently received information that we would be um receiving some reallocated funding of $1,000 from jcpc for next fiscal year so we will be using those funds to even expand even more on some of those opportunities for skill building that will lead to um employment opportunities for some of our youth and next next week we're actually going to be hosting our first graduation celebration for seven of our um participants we have five that are graduating from high school and two that are graduating from middle school to high school um so we're going to do kind of a small celebration for them and

their parents to come um to to give them certificates and just celebrate their achievements and then we're going to do an outing for the kids as well um and then we're going to do an endof year um for project Bill some of project Bill youth as well as some of the MBK um students that um attended our Summit to take them out to a durm Bulls game as well just to end the year on a high note so speaking of nbk um of course this is a pro it's not a program it's an initiative um that was President former President Obama's call to action to ensure our nation's boys and young men of color have equal opportunity to achieve their full potential um last year we hired a new MBK program manager and so we were able to start um doing the work again rebuilding that um initiative within Durham the this is the framework um the elements of success um I think everyone might be familiar um but it basically talks about how we're collaborating we're doing Collective impact um we're

doing I did how we can make system change using data to drive those decisions and then how can we ensure sustainability for those that are working with nbk durm some of the program highlights we have um started our steering committee it has been developed and we're meeting monthly um earlier today we actually had a strategic planning development session um we had had a vendor come in to help us do that work um that person will help us develop our goals and our objectives Ives um with our Community Partners who will be a part of the steering committee in November of last year we did become a certified Community with the nbk alliance we are one of two in North Carolina and one of 27 in United States and so last week um we hosted our our first nbk summit and I'll talk about that in the next slide a little bit more and then as well our nbk manager started a series of a podcast style listening session with our DPS students

um of young men of color um and basically he's gone to three schools so far and he's just having conversations about Community safety what are some things within School their goals what are they wanting to see differently in their community and so with our Summit last week we had more than 80 students and Community Partners in attendance it was about 50 um young men and boys of color in attendance which is more than we could have even imagined for our first event um some of the panelists did include our mayor mayor Williams Sheriff Burkhead we also had the CEO of MBK Durham who came um he's also a part of one of the certified communities and then we had the executive director from cities United who came from Louisville Kentucky um we also had other um panelists from educa from the educational sector we had professors from faille State we had representatives from um Coastal Credit Union just talking about kind of fiscal financial responsibility and some of the other panel topics was just about gun violence and we actually had some youth who

participated on that panel as well some of our students um attendees came from carington middle durm Nativity school they actually had three tables full of Youth um youth build who was one of our jcpc partners um they they brought some um youth as well and then of course youth from our ciss programs as came as well and I just wanted to share this is the flyer that we have for our talk your podcast talk your Talk podcast that our program manager um is doing across Durham and within DPS and again it's just talking to young men and giving them a space to kind of talk about what their needs are what their Community looks like to them so some Cass Department highlights um as I stated earlier the um gain reduction strategy steering committee was transitioned to the department um late last year and so our plan is to um work on that steering committee now that we have the training completed we will work on Gathering the steering committee um this month and some of July we know

July is hard to kind of gather people together because it's the summer but we are hoping to launch the actual steering committee in August um that will be our first meeting of the collective and start working on um reviewing the recommendations from the last assessment and then determining if there's a need for a new assessment um because I know it's been a few years since that assessment had been completed and so just trying to see if any of the recommendations have already begun the work and if not what do we need to do to kind of start start that work and what that looks like um the department has hosted um two racial Equity trainings um one was our racial Equity ground water which was in December and then we had the phase one Workshop in April um that both of those included um Community Partners we had some staff within the Enterprise um as well as our staff um so we kind of had a collective of people just in the community it wasn't just for our department so we open it up so that everyone that we work with can be on the same page how Equity plays a role in the work that we're doing within this department we also hosted our community

safety conference in August it was very well attended um we I believe we kind of um were planning for about 150 and we ended up having over 200 attendees for this first event so we're hoping that we will be able to host this conference again um we did use the burn um Edward Burns grant that we had that we received from David Congressman David Price's office um and this was was just part of what we were doing it was a three-part um program pilot that we did and so we also worked with um North Carina Central University Juvenile Justice Institute as well as one of the professors um from St a university who also did a literature review kind of looked at all of our programs they also did listening sessions with some youth um we did three we did one with youth we did one with college age students and then we did one with Community Partners and so all of that kind of helps us kind of guide how we're doing what we're doing and um help us kind of develop that that Community safety conference as well we completed program and

departmental evaluations so I did work with a third party vendor to come in to evaluate all three programs to kind of look at how we're doing programmatically um it wasn't specifically a quantitative um a qualitative uh evaluation but it did give us feedback on from the employees perspective because there were focused groups with this staff as well and then also just kind of looking at the programs their numbers making sure that our programs are successful if there's room for improvement and what we need to work on and currently I'm working with the same third party who's actually looking at our department structure to ensure that we're working in the most effective and efficient way based on how we're structured are there any places that we can do something differently and looking at the goals and objectives in the vision of how I would like to see our department moving forward and then lastly I was appointed by Governor Cooper to the North Carolina office of violence prevention Advisory Board um actually have a meeting right now that's going on for our subcommittee

um but I've been on this board for about four months right um four months now and this is basically a collective of anybody working in north in North Carolina on community violence and Community safety and so it's an honor to be a part of this board and kind of hearing and seeing what's happening in other counties how other counties can benefit us how we can benefit them and work together to develop some Statewide um training training some Statewide objectives and goals so everyone is kind of working on the same thing it may be differently but we'll have all a collective of what we're doing for the state of North Carolina so a look ahead as I mentioned the gain reduction steering committee is scheduled to relaunch in August um One goal of nbk durm is to create a countywide data Hub um so that is why I'm trying to get the data analyst hired um as quickly as possible and um part of that is really having our um Community Partners that work with MBK Durham to be able to help them with some technical assistance on how to collect their data um how to use the data to be

able to get funding um because that's one thing that we've heard from most of the partners is we we're doing the work but we don't know how to tell our story how to create that narrative to show that what we're doing is is successful how we're impacting others so we believe that if we have a countywide data Hub where everybody can kind of give us their numbers then we can have someone to analyze that that data be able to use that for those funding opportunities and it kind of streamlines what we'll be able to say this person say we started DSS this was a child and Foster Care these are all the resources that they were provided and now this is how how we got to the end this is their success and I think that this data Hub will be able to tell that story and show the collective impact that we're looking for um as mentioned project build um did receive $11,000 from jcpc so we be seeking new additional skill building um Partnerships and then hopefully in fiscal year 2526 we'll be able to expand project build to include youth um 10 to 13 years old um we do recognize that

kids are younger now that are kind of being impacted in our high risk of gang involvement and right now we're getting a lot of referrals for that age group but we're sending them out to other jcpc um partners that do work with that group of um individuals but we do also see how our program could impact and um could provide that need for them as well so that is our hope in not next fiscal year but the one after hopefully and that's my presentation thank you all so much um I'm gonna give it to the board uh who has the first set of questions commissioner Howton we can start with you if you like to go no problem commissioner ja now let me formulate my question um give me a minute okay thank you commissioner Jacobs go ahead thank you so much um Crystal really appreciate getting this update and really getting insight into a lot of the

structural systemic work that you have been doing and bringing in outside expertise and everything so thank you so much I know this it's a lot the um you know the the different programs that you're working with it's it's very challenging um so I you've made a lot of progress um so I have a a number of followup questions one with project build I'm so excited about the expansion it is so necessary and needed that can't happen too soon um and so obviously that's going to take additional resources um you know in Staffing but I believe so strongly in the project build model um and I would love to to get data for this past year about the number of Youth that have been served and the outcomes related to that because it is a case management um wraparound

preventative care you know the just what you described and also the staff we have some very long-term staff there people who have been so committed to this program I know Perry's not sitting here but I know we need to get them into the kind of um you know space that they they deserve for their program um but I will I will be really interested to know whether we do even now have adequate resources um especially when I think about just the little things that you just said like having a high school or middle school graduation is so important and I'm thinking about the summer you know making sure that all of those kids are involved in something in the summer um you know Ju Ju Just that type of thing so that that's one of my questions is do we have adequate resources even right now for that program um I would say we do not um for

our budget for project build we receive $130,000 from jcpc and that is one fulltime position as well as a third position and then the other goes to our programming for individuals 14 to 17 years old so the 18 to 21 we can't use those JCP dollars for that so outside of jcpc project build has $199,000 that comes from the city and then about 30,000 that comes from the county and so um we do what we can with that limited um amount um and our plans for the summer we used to have a summer camp during the summer but our numbers for the last two summers have not been the greatest so what we've decided is to try to link them to other opportunities that are already out in the community and then we would still have kind of drop in events for them it may not be the three weeks that we usually do but we're going to have some different opportunities for them during the summer that still connects them with project build but

we've been working to kind of get them situated with other programs I see Joanne is like ready to go good afternoon Joanne Pierce assistant County Manager just wanted to add to what uh director Harris stated and also address your uh question perhaps further uh commissioner Jacobs uh to that point no we don't have enough however this year was an important year of evaluation and examination and um if I believe if director Harris is able to do some restructuring and looking at um across her programs she may be able to um find within her existing budget those opportunities that we most we we desperately need to support uh those most impacted by um these issues that we're facing thank yeah that's exactly what I was going to ask about so I look forward to you coming back with recommendations about

reallocating um because you know we talk about the gun violence that we're seeing on the street I mean this is a program that we know that works um this is you know we want kids to prevent this is our effective gang prevention program so um I I want to make sure that we are fully U supporting this program um and related to this I just when I was listening to you I was thinking about you know are we connecting because this is also a we are directly supporting Duram Public Schools um these are kids that often are being referred from schools um and I'm wondering are are do we have any connection right now with the Duram Public Schools foundation so we have DPS is one of our strongest um collaborators that we have um they actually brought about six or seven folks from their Student Services office to our comprehensive game model training

and so we're working closely with them we do have relationship with um we have an MOA with the um superintendent for well with the school system to be able to go into the schools and do different things with those youth we're actually um looking at some additional services that we could provide within the school system um for next school year um so we're really working closely with them because they really do have the most contact with the students yes right and I just also want to mention with the gang report I really hope that we will move forward with implementing it if there is a need to revise that let's not we can spend forever revising plans but for my memory of that report it was very focused on Upstream investment ments and specifically around our schools and using the data that we're getting through the classroom and through the schools identifying kids early on who are having behavioral issues um you know

when there's treny uh some of the data points and that we can already track now when kids are at risk um and I and I just want to make sure that you all that you connect with Maggie Clap the director of DSs because she has already been talking to our board about starting a program that she led in Florida where she worked uh with the school system in Florida and they the social workers DSS social workers work closely with the school system staff again identifying kids who are at risk and how to provide wraparound support with the families um um so this will be really something great that I think aligns with the gang prevention with the gr gang reduction plan and also with what you're doing with project build MBK um so I just want to make sure you connect with with her on that do yeah

um and anyway I'll stop there if I we come back to you yeah CU I know you going um one before I start I do want to say I thank my colleagues for their support yesterday but I also want to thank the staff the manager the clerks and all the assistant uh c a lot of y'all checked on me I know y'all had family members who are also ill so please know that I appreciate you all as my extended family so I did want to correct that um and speaking of which you know I left here yesterday and the surgery actually is happening now for those of you who have asked um but I had to leave you know we got a policy in my family we don't like to eat if the surgeon has told another one of our family members they can't eat right like we all going to suffer together if you can't eat then nobody eats well you know the hospital was hospital and doing what they do best and letting stuff fall through the cracks and so it had been a quite some time so when I left here checked on umom

went to go get us some lunch and when I came back uh I could not get into the hospital cuz some kids have been shot so we were on lock down one the security guard one the security guards knew me I said there's no shank in here you know and he let me you know get my food uh to uh my mom but I laid in the car in the parking lot for two hours until the lockdown was over I st to say that we have to be really cognizant of the fact that gun violence affects so much more like I honestly sincerely think you know and it's not about me let me make that very clear I was out there with a lot of other families including the families of the folks who got shot so I'm always up here pontificating upset crying because some child has died but I do recognize that there are just so many other multiplying effects that this thing has this man had driven from Virginia his daughter being a car accident like he was losing his mind cuz he could not get into the emergency room and it had to do with the fact that somebody was shot so I do feel very confident that there's some things that we can do and I know

I'mma sound like a broken record but I don't care I'm going keep hitting Javier cavier over the head with her comments about how much she don't care about gun gun violence I don't care because we don't need elected officials who do say they don't care about gun violence we just don't and I'm happy to say that we sit up here and we got some folks that do care about gun violence and that's why we've been supportive but we need you all to make sure that these programs are running well and I don't have to be the dead horse y'all know all the programs ain't running well this is a budget hearing we ain't talk about the budget we got a overview I got a problem with that but at this point I just want to move forward CU it's too many dead kids and I hope that somewhere in your mind you just want to get better if not for me if not because I feel like yelling at people don't do no good clearly the school board Gonna Keep keep treating black kids like crap I need y'all not to make I need y'all to do y'all part because I can't count on them to do their part right and so I'm not g to sit here and and kind of sort of beat a dead horse uh and I'm I'm troubled because I feel like

in the next fiscal year budget if I don't punch like a hammer I can I know who's going to be sitting up here in these seats they replacing the library with the the the library with the librarian the librarian got to go look for answers I got them and I recognize who gonna sit here next year and she not going to push y'all as hard as I'm pushing y'all I'm Unapologetic about that so we know where Bull City United is we know the steps that we got to take um I will say I agree with my colleague and I probably agree with some of the other things that my other colleagues say I do feel like project build is the one that we really got to put an emphasis on do I want to take some of this funding and send it over to not all of it good gracious do I want to support some external Partners do I like some of the work that's being done by the Hat Ty reborn Justice movement absolutely but I do want to make sure that we investing I would be behind us restructuring to put more money in the project Bill and can I so the fit program I I I'll ask that later let's let's stick to these my issue with My Brother's Keeper I've seen some things

more I I I want to just say this publicly you all do a lot of work some of it is Gang Interruption that we can't know about but I can't say I'm just gonna say it frankly like we don't short of this uh presentation we we don't always know what you all do like the nbk summit I'mma hold my mule if I would have known about the planning I would have come to the manager and went and got y'all sponsors I'm there was nothing wrong with having in that Lions Park I would have got I would have gone out yes we happy we had 50 kids I personally feel like y'all could have had 500 now that's my personal belief and I feel like if you would have leaned on the women sitting up here as opposed to doing it yourselves I feel like it would have been bigger that doesn't mean that you all didn't put on a decent program I was there for a short amount of time I think there was some valuable conversations that could have been had but I know that my colleagues as well as some people in leadership didn't know nothing about it that's a problem especially since we've been very vocal about how much we care about it I'm happy that the clerk was able to put it on on my agenda I found

out about it on LinkedIn when Cory and shared it that is how that's the truth that is how I found out about it now if you say you sent me an email and I didn't see it you can say that it didn't get on my calendar till Monica put it on there and then I called my colleagues and I said did y'all know about this and I called some people in management and they a know about it so that's just the truth nobody I'll be the one to tell it and I'll show you the emails that they sent me back if you want to look at it but it's the truth Cory now has a podcast I could be wrong but I ain't see no dates on that podcast I might want to tune in to hear what the kids talking about so I'm just I'm just saying like there's no need to do this stuff behind closed doors when you have Folks up here who really seriously care about these kids dying who really seriously quite frankly want to hear what they're saying so that it can inform our decision making so it can inform our policy practice that's all we asking for this week javanna Lewis did uh did a sit down with black fathers it said men only I didn't go because it said men only but there so that they can have their space

and these fathers could talk about what they want to talk about that was not what that nbk space was and so um I I I understand that men need to have their own spaces Lord knows women need to have their own at times but um I think we need to do a better job of letting folks know uh what's going on uh some of the recommendations I am a little bit worried about the data analyst because I feel like my first year you know we really fought for that position when Joanne was doing this by herself you know there were people saying oh there's nobody over these programs and I was like we do have have somebody where I'm struggling is where we haven't filled them so I don't I don't know if we need to add more money to the position I don't know if we need to do an additional search did we already have somebody and we lost that person so that's just a so when we're asking for data you know I had the same question that she had you know I want to know and quite frankly I want to know before the 10th and I and which is Monday I want to know how many kids we served and I'd love if somebody could do an algorithm and maybe almost project you know how many more could we serve if it was 10 or 133 kids and I'm going do a j the

position I'm going to do the Betsy program The Betsy program agriculture program that's set some schools you probably thinking what in the world does that have to do with anything and I imagine the Betsy people are goingon to be super excited like they will legitimately come in here and say this is how many more agriculture students we can help when we don't even have a act teacher there right like they come in here with data points and that is what convinces my colleagues and at times convinces me when I have the wa me step back wait a minute can we really put money here do we really have an agriculture teacher here do we really have kids that are about ad do we have farmland for them to work on what's going to be the program but and they'll have all the answers and I just feel like with this program to be quite Frank I stepped back because I felt very comfortable with the work that was being done I'm not as comfortable and that doesn't have a lot some of it has to do with some of y'all I ain't G to lie but it also has to do with the fact that and I'mma end here and give it to my colleagues it has a lot to do with the fact that we are going into a very hot summer I said this the other day at the meeting it it's one thing when we can go to individuals and say say we will offer you this job opportunity okay your issue

is housing the fact that we had a shootout in front of the aoff at 9:00 in the morning y'all that is a housing issue the people say it's not you you you want to be in your bed at 7 ain't nobody waking up wanting to shoot somebody like it yes there are some situations where it gets that bad um but where we're at now those 12 people that were shot I know that there was one that was a domestic violence issue one was a young man who was breaking into his own aunt's house and his uncle shot him so that was a problem and that was in the morning so we know he wasn't in school but the other ones were gang violence I'm going to use myself as an example if someone were to murder me I have many siblings there is no job there is no uh house there's no wraparound services that you can give them where they will not want their pound of Flesh and so for me the reason why I want this to work like a well old machine is because exter we we still have a that is going to play itself out and I'm heart broken and I'll be crying again cuz I feel like it'll be seven more people dead cuz this gang award is

going on it's really about 20 people it's not everybody but I need y'all working well on everybody because this is g to play itself out and seeing as how and I'm I'm I'm with my colleague over here when she asked a second ago she's like what summer opportunities do we have last night and I'm G say it again Javier got up there and talked so much about the Schoolboard budget just show me what a city council is put in a dime last three weeks we've had parents to go up there saying oh there was this camp on corn Wallace we need $20,000 is this in the budget again they said no the camps at parks and wreck have been closed since February and they lack Transportation so that little performative Ally ship that they doing over there where we care about black kids and they'll talk about them on TV where they say that we we want to have more camps but don't want to put no M woman in them they want to show support a DPS budget but they've never put in a dime we want to make sure kids are safe but you pulled your SRO out like that is going to continue to happen and y'all are going to get brow beat because they they just like to talk on TV and they don't really care about dead black

children I'm asking y'all to care in the absence of me and other people that's all I'm asking for and if you come to us with these requests you already see one two you don't need but three you going to get five but when y'all sit up here and don't want to tell us the truth about some stuff that's done happen because somebody done got in trouble people at WR W have been arrested for drunk driving we got Folks at the hospitals I get it folks have been arrested like let's be honest about it that doesn't mean the whole program is bad but y'all walking around here in shame ain't helping nobody so um I would like to see some of those data points the recommendations I look forward to seeing what those are I want to know about an update on the black boys round table I need to talk with HR and the manager about filling that data uh analyst position and I look forward to finding out more about this graduation because once again you all said there's one we know nothing about it and I'm going to get it to my colleagues but thank y'all for everything that y'all do who wants to go next thank thank you oh if you oh I'm sorry you might have a response thank you Vice chair uh Burns

just two things uh we did not include the budget because we were not asking for additional funds however we will provide you with the information I believe you requested uh last week we have it for you we'll send it today and then the um uh the other great point you made about just the aspect of the evaluation this year um one of the things that the evaluator the researcher was able to look at is even program design and whether the programs uh or approaches that we're using is it a good fit and we've had other things for instance the um Community safety conference where we've heard loudly and clearly through the research and evaluation and also through the conference and the surveys and feedback that for Durham County an approach a collaborative approach that includes Community Law Enforcement um the transparency that we all want and need and then those who are most um closely impacted by gun violence Community violence they all have to be

at the table in a collaborative way and so that also allowed us a chance to look at our models and approaches so thank you for those comments thank you ma'am yes ma'am and I just wanted to add that we will be sending information about the graduation we just made that decision about last week while I was on vacation because I had to find funding because this is something I wanted to do because project build has exhausted all of their funding for this year um and with the summit I do do apologize we did send the information out but we will make sure that you all are included in all of these things that we are doing and what's happening um but we did also secure funding the Ila that we have for the city we made that ask and so that's how we were able to fund the summit um this year it was just late getting the funding um but we were able to do that and so therefore that's what paid for the summit that we had um last week but um with the data analyst I am work we looking at each other cuz why are y'all getting the city to pay for something that we pay for like that's the T like Me Andy over here and I yeah well you went to the city to ask them to pay there was already Ila currently it was a

current Ila it's not new money it was already money that we already had I get that but still but no this this is the interal group that's a four year one can I say we hear you we got the point I'm I'm letting it go cuz it's over I walked in the children were happy that's all I care about the children were fed they were happy and I saw a lot of men that cared about this issue so I want to continue to re-engage them I don't have a prompt program just the process but we it's not about us it's about kids it is and so that's what we're really trying to work hard on um but having that data analyst I am trying to really been working to fill that position but I had three new positions in um not including data analyst and trying to stand up two programs at the same time so being the only administrator it was difficult to do all of that Within this last fiscal year but that is one of my priorities to get done because we see that data is what we need that's driving this whole department is what our data looks like

um so I do have the applications just have to go through and um interview and that will happen this week or next week well thank you so much one congratulations also on your gubinatorial appointment so thank you so much for that y'all know what money y'all want to move I don't have to say y'all know where we wanted to go and I'mma go to my colleagues now I I don't know which one wants to go first commissioner Carter thank you ladies thank thank you um thank you for this presentation I think that um you've done a remarkable job of leading the new department and providing some good structure for it and and presenting that to us today um helped me understand the department better um grateful really grateful for that um I was going to congratulate you for on your appointment by the governor to the violence prevention Advisory Board um that's awesome and I I think it's I think you're doing a lot of really good things

I I um wanted to mention the comprehensive gang model training that you had for um yourselves and partners uh you know I if we if I felt like we had more time I'd ask for more information about the comprehensive gang model but I do I do believe in it it's a very comprehensive as it says holistic if it's something you could tell us really quickly I think it's an impressive um approach and if you could just highlight a few parts of it definitely so basically it's it's just as it is it's comprehensive so it's looking at every aspect of the youth in the community so it's bringing everyone together to do this work and so our part is the street Outreach with project build um which was born out of um the gain reduction strategy you have the gain reduction steering committee and then your intervention team those are the three parts and so it's just working collaborative collaboratively and finding out who is responsible for doing what and so we actually um I have a follow-up meeting with them on Thursday they're going to provide me with the um presentation that they

trained us on so I'll be happy to share that with you all as well cool that'd be awesome um yeah and getting and getting the gang reduction steering committee back up and running just all that um and and making it real making it uh you know not just a meeting that happens every couple of months but actually you doing the real work and it's hard because it is so so cross sector that that's always the the most difficult work and of course this is hard because there are more guns in America than there are people and so that makes all of our work doubly hard in in our efforts to prevent the killing of children usually CH children of color as our vice chair always reminds us um I was wondering if you all work with Project SAFE neighborhood hey Tyree Bourne the Justice Services Department those were just a few that came to mind then Wendy mentioned you know DSS and of course there's DPS clearly a partner but just wondering how your work intersects with um Project SAFE neighborhood and he Ty reborn in

particular so with Project SAFE neighborhood we actually attend there um they have um quarterly meetings which I attend as well as some of my team attends that um we work closely with the sheriff and tamama Kilmore who was the coordinator oh yes and so we um and last year they had an event and we did get the email invitation for the event this year so we do set up our tables um at their events at the stadium provide information and tamama is actually on our um MBK steering committee as well um and so we work very closely with the sheriff's department in that program with he Tai reborn we also work very closely with them we've actually have a day um once a week where we take participants over to hati um who are formerly Justice involved or currently Justice involved who are looking for educational um employment opportunities um we referred some over for their bridge program so we do work closer with them as well good very good um and what happens if one is is called an MBK certified community so

basically we had to go through a um it was about a six weeks Pro uh process and it was actually modules that we had to do online there's questions about our community that we had to complete um we had to develop our goals for our community and what our mvk was going to do um we actually had a convening in Chicago that we attended with the other 27 um there are four communities in um other states who actually came to kind of talk about what they're doing and how they've been able to use their data to show how their Collective impact is working within their community so we get more support um being a certified Community we get more training um we have a um chelley Hernandez who is actually our liaison with nbk Alliance she works very closely with us as well to help us develop um what it looks like for our community so every every body's going to look differently but it provides us with more resources and kind of a better structure to get us started especially since we kind of started and then we stopped for a while and now we're getting back um into the swing of things so it it makes us have more resources to be able to Pro provide to

Our Community Partners and to our community great and it does sound very official it gives us that designation as well I I really like the idea of your countywide data Hub and I'm wondering will this be an opportunity for shared data just within ciss or you know it'll be data that will you'll be sharing across Partners across Partners that's our goal and part of um the evaluation that we have going on right now as far as the departmental structure they actually provide us with some resources around data sharing and what that Hub looks like so um that's something that we're going to be looking at and seeing how we can incorporate that into our department and into both the uh gang reduction steering committee and MBK and so since we have two steering committees living in the same Department we're trying to see what's the mo the best way to streamline because we're more than likely going to have the same people kind of overlapping into both um and MBK is kind of like the umbrella that game the gang steering committee would somewhat fall under as well so those two managers will work closely together but

definitely some data sharing is what we're looking for because that's what everybody wants to do is data share and it's it seems like it's always so so difficult you know so anyway you're making it sound like it's going to be easy can do attitude can do I'm GNA try my best we like that um well and and and also Kudos on the department program evaluation and review that is underway and I'll look forward to um learning more about the results of that um but thank you so much for being here today and and for all the leadership you're providing in your department thank you so I'm um first I want to say thank you for the work that you've done to to set the to get this department up and rolling it unless you have been a part of

starting a whole new Department you can imagine all the stuff that is taken to to get this set up uh so I want to say thank you for the work that you've done there here and when we talk about um the strategies that you're talking about with mpk um My Brother's Keeper is not something it takes collaboration it takes the whole Community participating um you know we are so impatient we are so impatient patient with the fact that our children are dying and we don't have a lot of patience to wait for outcomes and you know I've heard people talk about they want to see outcomes now my God if anybody wants to see

outcomes I want to see outcomes and they don't happen overnight so I think you guys get it I I can't get through this one just I I can't I'm I'm going to let it go I can't I can't do this one today thank you commissioner Howton in the event that you do want to come back did you have any additional questions only thing I wanted to add was similar as I know you're going to be reeval you as part of your evaluation

you are evaluating all the programs and their um effectiveness um um similar to and I'm just want to piggyback a little bit on what commissioner Burns said I think with um MBK the steps that you're taking about getting us certified um also want to make sure that has adequate funding we want to make sure there's enough funding to host events um to and be able to you know the structure of the steering committee um um I'd be really interested to see who is serving on that I think that's very important um again this whole collaborative model but how do we how do we um you know do which is also a me before is um having supporting nonprofits in the community that are carrying out the goals of MBK because

MBK is not a program it's it's an initiative as you said it's not a program it's not not providing Services it's an initiative trying to lift up and support the work that is happening in the community you know the colle it's like a collective impact model right um so having that capacity building how can we strategically do that with being able to support some of the organizations that we know are there are um who are who have for a long time been doing great work and could benefit from that increased capacity and then having a pipeline how we connect um youth in our community to them so all of that but again that's so I hope you'll also come back with in the future recommendations about how we can restructure um with MBK too because I

know that's important and to your point um My Brother's Keeper um went through a shift two three years ago moving from you know addressing one person one individual one male youth of color to the systemic uh change in the blueprint that we now use which is really great that we're part of that uh National certification where we're getting that support and you're right it's the Hub it's the collective impact is getting getting those Folks at the table all systems on board institutions uh multi- sector um collaborative so yes we have that and I believe uh director Harris she's at decision points we're at decision points where you will see those changes that are necessary as a result of program evaluation that we could bring forward to you that will really um enrich um the work that's being done in this department okay ladies

um I know we asking a lot of y'all and most people would say that that's a heavy lift I just need y'all to lift heavy and I know that that's unfair and I need y to do it before November I I'm not kidding I I do not know what will happen next year I I feel I I've SE I've worked with these people they do not care I'm I'm Unapologetic and telling the truth about them just as much as they're Unapologetic about lying about us so I'm asking y'all ask us for what you need and I know it's going to be hard but I'm I need y'all to step up as women I need to step up as women of color uh we get mixed messages from everybody else and that mixed messaging is what pushes public policy in this community to its detriment you got folks out here in purple t-shirts and whistles y'all I done said it purple t-shirts and whistles do not stop bullets they calling the police now you know it it's not a lie number two we got folks around here they say they don't want the sro's in the schools and then you asked the

you asked the principals you asked the parents they did three surveys nobody was under 87% they needed to stay and then you had folks that come in here last week we've always been wanding people down but somebody said I wish we had this in the schools there's money there they won't go get it from the state again that's the mixed messaging right so which one do they do you see what they did in cumin County and it said well I'm pulling all of them out them teachers had a cool down there last week then you sit up here we got another group of folks saying we don't want folks in that they can handle themselves there's a reason why we have an assistant sending the youth home because we get the fact that folks want to call the folks on the police first wand Bo stood right up there at that Podium and what was what did she say she had a kid what was it a fifth grade or a 5-year-old I can't remember which one it was the kid had a vape card she didn't call uh violence she didn't call diversion Services she didn't call the principal she called the police she called the police on some fifth graders with a vape cartridge what happened over at DSA a boy had a p schol Riv him former principal C him put him in project for 13 weeks that he couldn't come back to school till he finished the alcohol program we have folks in this

community that actively work in their professions every day to make sure that black kids can't come back to school and if they can't come back to school they can't learn if they can't learn they can't get a job if they can't get a job they gonna make a job you know what job they gonna make the one holding something up or holding something and then they back in jail again I I need y'all to lift heavy thank you thank you and to the board we are ready we're able and willing to do what we need to do to ensure that our Durham Community is safe and well thank you you let me have let me have one more moment if you will go for it um the thing that I I would like to leave on to have on the record is one of the things that occurs and it's not about you it's really about leaders in this community and how we treat our black and brown children we don't step up as far as as

elected officials and put the resources toward the programs and the initiatives the first thing we do is cut the initiatives that are supposed to help keep these children out of arms way but those are the things we first cut so as a matter of record I want that stated is that it's not about the people that are conducting the programs it's about the elected officials that are first thing they do is they cut the programs and put the money elsewhere so our staff is doing what they can do with the restraints that we put on them as elected officials we cut the money so I appreciate the work that you're doing and the rest of the the

staff but let's put the blame where it belongs thank you thank you ladies we will head into board discussion Madame manager I will give it over to you I think it's to you and the finance staff at this this juncture yes ma'am they look so happy well look we had some really good discussions this morning and so um what staff will do is present um a first first pass at what we feel like is a culmination of all of the discussions that we've had and um how we can provide the funding that you have expressed that is um a priority for you and we will continue to dog trade until Monday hor trade hor trade horse trade dog trade no because if these folks in here acting like rabbit dogs I'm a talk to them like their dogs oh so I will say and I do want to really commend um the staff and and DCM Hager okay CL

say I got to behave okay go ahead I'm sorry um director Lane David 8s Heather Jonathan Justin um Shannon thank you all so so much um they have have really been creative about how we can identify Alternatives um funding options to do what it is you have asked us to do so so with that I will turn it over to director Lane thank you before we start on the ad delete list and the dog trading horse trading trading amongst yourselves to try to get to a reasonable conclusion for the budget ordinance approval on June the 10th I have handed out a document that talks about DPS because the add delete list is going to look different and I want to go over what I handed out for DPS to make sure we are all clear on where we are at this moment in time if that's okay because it's fairly complicated as we try to

8 million from what was approved this year to what is being potentially approved by the board that's not all the funding remember we have arpa dollars available and we are going to use $6 million of arpa we moved 4 million from current capital you'll see it drop from 6 million to 2 million we moved that to current expense there's a lot of things happening I just want wrote it out on a piece of paper to make but in turn we are at least least for one year going to use $6 million of arpa funding to support the 2 million current

5 million they requested what

5 million in current capital right we're giving them $8 million to try to get a an extra five so ostensively they could use some of the0 five for these hard to fill positions no ma'am all the dollars are limited yeah we we are strategic in how we're all Me by substituting something in their capital budget it could free up money that they could choose to use for these positions well can I would just offer that um we're

5 million okay we

we also have a Aster with this that states we will come back thank you to talk about the capital because of pressures of repair Renovations that the superintendent talked about and others that we we want to make sure that we handle in a a strategic way and that's going to take us a little bit more time but with the commitment of doing that towards the August time frame in summer that's what we talked about yes so so I just wanted to just caution um before the conversation got too far away yes and we just to clarify also and we meet about that on Tom that the first conversation about that is tomorrow because let one we're going above and beyond and I know y'all got an audience today so y'all know I don't care um but

I want to be very clear I've told my colleagues the ones that would listen um what we're trying to do is ascertain how much Dam not let me not say that how much work needs to be done because the school board in no way has advocated at all for any repairs not at all and so we will be meeting as leadership this week so that we can ascertain it properly and then this will be a start and then see what we can do later in the year so that doesn't mean that we're not fully funding everything but seeing as how they're they're really good at messing things up we just want to be in a decent position to say okay let's see how bad it is and then come back that's the bad way that that Claudia don't want to say it so Claudia is that does that mean that 26 million is where you will start out next year as far as the school's budget and then you will add to that on whatever

5 million do to DPS and then next year when that budget is requested whatever they request will add on to the 26 million that's if they come and ask for an increase um possibly that could possibly happen but remember this 26 million also includes Capital support so they may not ask for an increase in capital support we don't know but if they do ask for it then yes it would build on that I I guarantee you that DPS just by the nature of State salary increases will be a 7 to8 million minimum increase and operate you know of course and operating so I didn't want to stop everybody I so before we put this on them or put it on DPS we still don't have a state budget yet and to we don't

6

39 it is but there's 20% sear charge that includes that okay that includes that amount yes ma'am does every okay go ahead Dr so I just wanted to say that so I hope that alleviates your concern about us not covering that because we that that is one of the things that I would hope our new collaboration would help us identify where we can cover some of those costs and let me just say I would hope that would be one of the priorities yes if we can't do it that that would absolutely be the number one priority is finding funding for that request and and also so just so we're I want them to finish but I want to go to commissioner Howton additionally commissioner alarm is on and Mr Mayor I hopefully your your city council said they you know they support this so maybe you would like to tell us how much money you gonna give us out of y'all budget so if you want I'll give you opportunity commissioner Howard it's on you now and then we'll go to commissioner LOM and then I must press that we have to go to

them oh oh I'm sorry yes and also commissioner Carter and then we got to let them finish because they might answer the question ahead of time that's all I'm saying so the 26 million what kind of tax rate is on what does that push our tax rate to without even having any consideration for for staff we are going to get to that next if you can wait okay can you I'm happy to I can tell you now but if you wait we're going to go to that second and I'll show you how all that shakes out out okay and thank and commissioner Carter can I get commissioner alarm Okay and some of this is ARA so it's not commissioner alarm is are we off of mute go for it that commissioner Howton asked my question um it was be tax increase I just wanted to get this out in front so you all were clear because it's going to look different on the ad delete page

which is all about deltis I just didn't want to confuse y'all with that P because you have this understanding DPS is everyone clear yes commissioner car yeah I actually felt clearer yesterday but anyway um The Six Million from arpf that's going towards current capital support is four million of that intended to be transferred up to the you know sort of like the general fund budget increase almost so that there would really be like $24 million for funds that aren't capital for DPS is requ West do you see what I'm saying I I thought there was this whole thing about if you so really the capital is 2 million I mean in effect the capital and the general fund is 2 million but arpa is giving the same amount of money at least for 24 25 but four of that's being shifted not of the arpa I thought there's two million there's two million

left if you approve in the general fund for current capital two million then there's an additional 6 million of arpa for a total of $8 million available to DPS minus four no I thought there was this whole shift happened 4 million 4 million there was $6 million budgeted the 4 million went oper it's part is yeah like I said I thought I got it yesterday now conf y making it more confusing and harder to that's we had yesterday L ladies ladies our lady leaders our y'all I would again respectfully request as we proceed in this meeting that we allow them to do the complete presentation and then we ask some of the questions about the numbers he just wanted to let us see this first before the other sticker shot maybe he should have did it in the reverse order but I can appreciate this plan I I am but I I I I I completely get that and I think you should have gave them to us afterwards I know we weren't we know

5 $5 million we are recommending moving $4 million of current capital down from six to two to current expense but replacing that money with $4 million of arpa plus an additional $2 million of arpa so you got 2 million in current plus four plus two for a total of $8 million between arpa and general fund

5 or whatever those choices are for 2526

85 million general fund increase I had a question about that so how did that come move from 13 to 19 without the 8 million being that's because the manager did not recommend in her budget the $8 million increase Plus the search charge the the charter search

8 million classified study recommendation plus the 20% sir charge on that it's about $10 million I see a hand here but I do want to make sure commissioner commissioner Howton has hers finished first so that's in the 19 yes ma'am but then when you add the another six million to it is that is that subtracting out of it or is that adding another service to the 19 we are we are not we are simply meeting 99 % of the DPS request in

8 million that is a $23 million increasing yes' so I'm looking I'm looking at the bottom of the sheet where you got the 19850 right and then the uh Capital support 6 million that you're adding the 6 million on to the 19 correct but it's coming from a different funding source yes but why why is it being added on to the 19 what is it paying for the $6 million go ahead C if you no the the $6 million will cover the capital expense okay and then um 716 ,000 will cover and that's arpa dollars those will cover the prek

um expense the reason we broke it out that way is because those are one-time dollars and we wanted to make sure it was clear the amount that the county is supporting um on a recurring bases in local dollars and I I know this it's um we we had conversations earlier about this and we were trying to figure out the right way to show it because it is complex um so I totally understand commissioner Howton and others how how this uh can can seem a little um confusing um but this was our attempt to try to leverage all available resources to meet the board's desire to get to a different funding level so let me ask you one other question about the Six Million is that will that be taxed

part of the tax evaluation no ma'am so the Six Million so the Six Million are arpa doll and we have to use those through um December 31st 2026 so that is the other advantage of this um although whatever dollar we give to um Durham Public Schools they um what they don't spend that it does flow to their their fund balance so it will be treated the same in that respect they have until 2026 to use it now when we get to 25 26 budget year we do need to plan for the $6 million and so if you may recall we started out this budget year um planning and back in November we said where we were starting in a whole kind of sort of so before we even asked for a request there were some areas that we were planning for so this will be one

that we're planning for and we're hopeful that other areas such as sales tax Etc are stabilized enough that our projections will allow us to move forward and not have some of the um prepandemic adjustments that we've gone through with this cycle but that's why also in the recommended budget we said 25 26 will be a year of zero based budget review so that um we can look at our base and everything we do and revisit what kind of Service delivery we desire and what we can we afford so um we have this will be in the Forefront throughout the whole process and if I can just add one more piece to to Hope hope y clarify more so where you see that $1,850 that is the amount that um would have to be covered through property tax

increase if needed so the reason we broke it out if we hadn't if we hadn't used arpa for the 6 million and the 716 instead of 199 milon 850 you would have seen 26 m567 th000 so we're not having to burden yes ma'am we are we are not we are putting off in an additional 1 point something Cent tax rate increase because we are using arpa funds at least for one year but as Claudia noted and I have to that's not permanent next year we've got to climb out of that hole either through other Revenue sources or find one point some odd cents worth of property tax next year to make up the 6 million of arpa we're using but that's what we're trying to do to limit the tax rate increase needed to support Durham Public Schools

request commissioner Carter thank you praise God thank you for your um I'm I am in awe of your fiscal wizard Wizardry um and really appreciate it you know so much the way in which you've sort of cobbled together and you know more of an increase in the tax rate to to help us be as fully supportive of the DPS request as possible also looking at at at other revenues in creative ways I just really really appreciate the way you've puzzled this together for us you've helped us solve a puzzle um but one question I H still have is Right we've gone to the zoo down here we apologize commissioner cardo that's all right um I'm I'm comfortable in a zoo um let's see how do I want to phrase this um is there a way is there any concern that some of the money the arpa funding

39 that we aren't funding there is money in that line item to do those things the only concern if there is any potential is arpa dollars used for Capital and or arpa dollarss used for DPS prek which

I'm confident that Claudia John Kefir in our office in in in management have reviewed closely if there were to be a problem with that we could always go to County Pago money to backfill that million but to be clear at least from your intent the man the potential approved budget of 205 million has 23 plus million do in additional current expense funding to support every one of the DPS request on that sheet that commissioner Jacobs just showed right there except for the one point hard to fill position amount plus the charter SCH I remember the Money sheet right I know the sheet I remember that money sheet but but do you see my point that can I throw something else out also too can I I'm I'm as respectfully as I can I I know what you're asking but you know what the big problem is even if we were to give them all 27 they still have to decide what they're going to do with it oh I'm not even asking for the all 27 I'm just trying to understand the current expense

versus just the line item I just the commissioner Carter can I give it a shot so if you look at the current expense Topline 181 to 205 is 23 million okay so that's okay and then you look at the next line3 I understand that that's what we need to have is 23 but we we do have it but let me show so the next line is capital outlay which in the general fund funded is going from six to two that's a minus four so the 23 minus the four is why you're only seeing the 19 now that's been bothering me the whole time so we can add that column and so this will be a little bit more clear I'm sure it is my is my brain it is not the way you presented it I totally there's a lot going on and it needed to be explained but can I y'all cuz here's the other issue I the reason why and I respect y'all and I would have got I'm happy David did it every time we ask a a question it confuses the public and quite frankly that is not I don't want y'all to leave out of here and tell your

friends the wrong thing I don't want anybody in the public to tell somebody else that's not I just want us I'm happy you all are asking these questions but let's let's also be mindful of people who are just catching things and going one way and going another way I feel like this is a this is more than double and to be quite Frank it is more than double that we've come up with sitting up here absent conversations with Dae absent conversations with DPS absent conversations with their staff and I personally think that this is a good staff at it and it's absent all these things but it is at the burden of the tax dollars I mean of our tax of our um excuse me I our me cuz I live here and I am a taxpayer a lot of folks that got up and did a lot of talking last week were not you know matter of fact and I'm going let him finish but during Public Schools is 45% African-American it is 40% Latino and I ain't see 85% of none of that in this audience let's really be honest about it and so I think that this is a decent hit at what we're

trying to look at without continuing to like the manager said yesterday we have consistently done this every single year and the board that's coming after this is about to inherent this horrible horrible problem that we laying at their feet so I I would like for them to get a chance to finish at this best effort that quite frankly I I was comfortable when we were at 23 they were able to get to 26 and that was last Thursday when there was a math equation that we came up with and we're trying our best and I'm saying this as nice as I can I hope you can receive it unless you have been talking to them for the past two or three weeks like some of us have what I don't want to happen is for them to be kind of hit with questions when there are those of us who are sitting here not and everybody not in leadership and we knew some of it because we we've continuously worked on this issue because we didn't want them to be attacked so if you have questions I want you to ask them but if they're really deep in the Weeds about

5 million more for DPS between arpa funding and County funding having said that there is a per pupil number that matters to a lot of people as a sort of reference point in comparison to other people the per pupil funding is only Cy current expense general fund divided by the number of pupils that approved number is 205 it's

not approved yet the proposed hopefully to be agreed upon now and approved on June the 10th current expense funding for DPS is $25,800 minus the annual prek support is25 293 divided by the number of estimated students for next year that's Charter and DPS at 38 396 that's a per pupil number of $534 the budgeted per pupil for the current year is $4,650 that's a growth of almost $700 per pupil to support and that's not all of it that's just the current expense line and remember we're putting 6 million more in current capital with arpa and we're doing some prek stuff with arpa that's not counted in that number that's simply which is a good thing because it's not the 20% sear charge on Charter Schools but it's still a $700 increase per pupil in local funding for Durham public schools by the board

of County Commissioners we good yes ma'am commissioner Jacobs you know I've asked this a lot but if we added just for hypothetical purposes the direct funding that we also provide that I I really would like us to understand because if you add the new prek and the you know the witted and plus the new that we're going to do which is um for M Murray massenberg and W it if you include that plus the sro's public health nurs you know Bull City Schools all of that which it comes up to probably around 9 10 million what I'm interested of what that would actually get us you have that as a question and I can do that math I just haven't had a chance to get to it and we will put that in the budget document as well we do add go ahead go ahead yeah but I think the community needs to know that too and we also we do on the budget page for Durham Public Schools show a per pupil funding that

1 billion for schools it was not if y'all ready it was 690 million so here it is they're only using about 25% of their money for their uh

school board but we're using almost uh 50% for ours I just want to put so you're comparing us to a county that is four times our size and not even us in percentage wise half as much as we're using for our schools but go ahead yeah I I just think the context is important we we we're we spend a lot of money in Durham and we do we do prioritize funding our schools and they deserve to be prioritized um and but I just I just think it's important that people understand you know you know we are putting our values uh where and are reflected in the budget um and even the I think they gave an additional 58 million for schools and if we do this we're actually um doing proportionally they um again they're four times as big as us their school system is about 160,000 kids so um yeah we're we and thanks to you all you're helping us

figure that this out because we could not do it without your expertise so thank you that's all I have on this sheet now I'm going to show you how that affects the overall tax rate increase we show you an add delete sheet that's going to look a little different I hope you will trust me there's no way I could explain what I just explained on this sheet because it's done differently than that sheet so I hope I have earned your trust having said that there are some changes that were discussed over the board work sessions budget work sessions one was yesterday with uh Cooperative Extension adding back $107,000 that David and I noted we're going to use reserve for future purchases dollars that we have that's a net zero change to the budget no cost potential benefits changes uh Dr soell and Claudia can talk about this but there are some concerns among the board members about the benefits changes the buyout plan and how it may affect lower

salaried employees there's we're going to budget a million dollars and hold on to it see how open enrollment ends up see who who charged got charged what and not individually but in Aggregate and try to appropriate potentially up to a million dollars to offset some of those costs that's just an additional million dollars to this budget that wasn't added could be a bonus could be any number of ways we support these things that's included in the delete list okay dtcc came to you all and talked about a needing additional 500,000 $54,000 more that's in the ad delete it's additional expenditure we have to find funds for DPS ends up being those three red numbers please don't make me go through them because they look foundationally different but just trust me just trust me okay CU this is a Delta from the manager recommended just trust me and then there's he TI Reborn and there was some

25 Cent tax rate

5 or if you're not you need to discuss here well we ain't going to discuss it here but thank you so much for this work that you all put in thank you for listening

to us I do know that there's some people who've talked to me about some minor changes and some guard rails that we want to put up nothing more more technical some guard rails around the arpa funding so that we can make sure that it's utilized appropriately uh making sure that the Ila is strong I know we've done that uh discussing if potentially later on how we will deal with the ha TI reborn Justice budget to give them the guard rails they need um I I think you know one of the things I noticed we gave them a Fiscal Agent they have a CFO and they also had an external audit you know we pushed them to have a Fiscal Agent you know where's the wiggle room uh there and these are things that i' I've discussed with some folks so I'm not saying these in a vacuum um I think there are a couple other things that we could look at uh I'll let the my the rest of my colleagues but it is a long way to June 10th I do just want to to once again reiterate um I thank my colleagues whether they believe it or

not for at least voicing their opinion and being open to have some of these discussions and um and do these things uh I'm Unapologetic about any of the comments that I've made because what I do want folks to understand um we have increased this budget every year and parents ask us questions that they don't ask y'all and we ain't gave them nothing to show for it and we are once again doing we're aligning our votes with our values um and parents are going to need to see something because we see that they're going to other Alternatives and they're not going to other Alternatives because of the reasons that y'all are saying that they're going to him they're going to him for and I will give those reasons on juneth uh when I make my statement about this budget but we can move on to the next person whoever I see commissioner Carter has uh her light on so I'll let her go first anybody else for the good and please if

you do have a problem I see commissioner Jacobs talk to the manager talk to Claudia talk to well talk to the manager first and then and we'll try to figure it out between now and the 10th um actually I I'll turn my light back on well commissioner Jacobs did have her hand if you if you okay she's still looking so you can go ahead um I just wanted to say how collaborative I feel this process was um among the five of us Commissioners and you know there's a lot of political pressure on each of us too and different different sectors are applying different pressure to different people um and I think that we all try to listen to the public and it's interesting when the public says do the right thing and be brave if we only knew exactly what the right thing was that part would be easy I mean the these are difficult decision decisions lots to weigh lots of pros and cons and I feel like we've you know we

is there it's everything in this budget exactly the way I would budgeting budget if it was just me probably not but um and we would each say that but we've we've negotiated that's what we've tried to do well together this year and I feel like we have I feel like this has been a team effort um among the five of us and in partnership with our staff and and and we've come through or are coming through this could be the end of you know a really contentious budget process and it's a positive outcome um and I would like to try to feel uplifted by this um and and hopeful you know for our community's future that we're investing in the most important services for the residents of durm County with with this budget um I just you that's what I wanted to say I'd like to try to be optimistic and hopeful commissioner

Al hi I just wanted to Echo the sentiments of commissioner Carter and add on just thank you so much to the budget staff and the managers team for hearing all of our feedback and thoughts throughout this process and working to be Innovative around like you know how do we use the arpa dollars how do we provide this extra funding to DPA yes without having to raise the taxes like even above 5 cents close to 6 cents or anything and really hearing those concerns from each of us um and I actually like as commissioner Carter mentioned like I appreciate all of the people who have taken the time to come and speak with us who have sent us letters who've called um I really appreciate that level of engaged constituency because it's important for each of us um to hear from residents to hear from people about how what they need from us um so I just really want to thank everyone who's been part of this

process and I'm really excited that we've reached this point I feel really good and comfortable with uh the funding we're going to be able to give to our schools I'm glad that we're going to be able to provide and and support the well if you I'm speaking too soon but I saw the 1 million for the benefits that hopefully our folks will be able to keep some form of their benefits and just had one final question about the retirees does that include the retirees in that 1 million manager so yes so the number itself um could included I've spoken with our HR Director so this may um have to be more policy driven we won't be able to finalize that by the 10th but I did convey that we want to make sure we address the concern concerns of the retirees as well and so that's a conversation we had this morning and when again when I ask you all if you would trust us to do the right thing we

do as we do if you all will allow us time to work through that we do have that um top of mind thank you manager so I appreciate that and yeah if we can as we work through that maybe communicate to employees and retirees that we're still like even though the budget has passed this is still something we're working through and like please you know stick around with us thank y'all for sticking around y'all ain't you know hold a gun to our head and say y'all ain't coming to work so I do appreciate that I do thank y'all so much I'm happy you brought that up I had almost forgot y'all come to work every day praise God um I also I'mma go to you commissioner Jacobs um I get it you know I I I I get it you know oh commissioner Burns is all gloom and doom no I'm not I'm a realist I can sit here and at the same time clap for a graduation and then be saddened by the graduation rate that

doesn't make me a monster that makes me a realist like we have to be honest like we can't if if all we look at is the pretty picture every day we are disillusion fools and I feel like that's what we we I I want people to always look at the bright side but if this board comes in here next year and the only thing they look at is the bright side we're going to continue to have dead kids outside we gonna continue to have folks on drugs that it's just the honest truth like we have there's no problem when commissioner Jacobs talks about fitting all and how many people are dead there's no problem when I talk about how much we don't spend on minority Women Business there's no problem when I talk about black maternal health and how I want outcomes it's like we can talk about those bad things and everybody in this board can receive it as soon as we ask one question about the schools it is like we are walking around here looking like Mark Robinson and I don't know what position I don't know what is Warped in y'all head that a question is anti-teacher as opposed to it is why don't we have anything in front of us from the school board that makes any sense anymore how did we give y'all $700 million give y'all all of

y'all arpa money all y'all s's money then give y'all all our s's money and I me see all our ARA money and y'all still can't make it work so I'm just I'm being honest with the public because they don't know and I'm and and their parents you're exactly right commissioner Carter there are parents that come to me and there are there are parents that come to you that will never come to me and vice versa ver and and while I sit in this seat I'm going to honor those parents and I don't have to honor anybody else up here except for them and I and I'm not going to apologize I used to apologize I'm not going to apologize for speaking up for I sent the school board a letter last week about a teacher calling the kid a monkey I sent another letter to a school the school board about a boy being sexually assaulted and they have not replied or responded to it yet but we're giving them this money I can vote and give them this money and still say I want those kids protected commissioner Jacob damn well I just want to say this this has been a very challenging budget my in my 12 years definitely the most

difficult one but I do feel really good about this process has been one of collaboration and just everyone working really really hard I we are in a crisis and we need to it is really important that we take this very dramatic action at this time and I think that our staff I really appreciate that you recognize that um and have worked with us to help us um we are um in a time of Crisis that takes extraordinary action and I hope that that's what the community will see um we we need to have a strong public school system to to be a thriving Community our schools are the heart of our community to have a thriving economy to be able to attract employers to be able to have families who want to live here um to have a safe Community we

we have to have a a thriving um schools they are the center of our community I fully believe in that as a former Duram Public School educator parent um children who were graduates and now the parent of a Duram public school teacher um so but the work this is just the beginning I feel like this budget is just the beginning we are stepping in to do what we need to do and the collaboration has to continue we all have to continue working together and I'm really excited about what we heard from the intern superintendent yest yesterday um the measures that she's already putting in place the policies the fact that our manager and our board leadership is going to work together with our staff leadership on forging A A New Path forward we're we're in a new

time of not only the continued attacks from the state legislature um we have to take things to the state legislature but at the same time we're in a new landscape of having less revenues thanks to our staff educating us on that um so yes so this is for me I feel like this is just the beginning of um trying to work together in new ways for the benefit of our community so thank you thank you thank you I'm really grateful to all of our staff yes Keith so I want to thank the staff mostly for all the work that you've done because we know we challenge you we challenge you um I do not feel good about this budget I do not feel good about this

budget of all after 16 years of going through budget process and the last three years being the chair and fully funding DPS this budget makes me sad it really makes me sad it makes me sad because of the tax burden we're going to put on the citizens and the fact that we're talking we can shout and be great and happy that we have given DPS with they ask for but the outcomes will my children in Durham be in any better position next year than they are today that is my

question what will be the [Music] outcomes that will be different than we see today I don't see them and normally I like to think I'm a positive person but right now I don't Envision that our children will be any better off and 2025 when this board sit here and navigate how they're going to come up with more than $25 million because it will be more so no this doesn't make this this budget doesn't make me happy and you know there are a lot of

things is still we're not sure of in this budget but I just need to say it just doesn't I I take no joy in this and we've got a lot with the economy the way that it is everybody that's in an economics downturn in our community or having challenges with finances the people that are not having problem with finances are in that upper level of income so this won't bother them but people that are in low low to Middle income they will have a challenge here and who they can point their fingers at it's just boring so we can take joy in it if we want but

I I don't see it thank you come Dr so if you have any in if you have any final comments because we just G to sit here and pontificate about how disappointed we are and I don't want the board to take that on because I happen to agree with commissioner Howton fully that is just go I'm not going to do it I'm I'm going wait till Monday cuz I I want to light y'all asses up on Monday um after I vote for this budget so um yeah if there's nothing else Dr so well you can go ahead I mean it's funny to some people on the board because y'all it doesn't matter what the teachers want y'all give it to them and and what I can't understand I I I'm I'mma put the emails on my personal website of how many times I've sent something to DPS about a black child being hurt and how I ain't heard from none of y'all that's that's what I want to put out there so people can get up at this Podium and they can cry their Blues but

a black mama cry hers and I hear silence so yeah that's that's the that's the energy I'm bringing on Monday I'm going Vote for This budget but I'm taking some people with me Dr soel do you have anything just want to thank um again the staff um you've done just a fabulous job of helping us navigate this very very difficult budget um process and the financial constraints that we had um you all have been nothing short of brilliant and I'm so so proud of you right now and I told him we are going out to celebrate regard once it once it's done um we are doing and then I want to thank um my board you all have been very Frank and open about sharing what concerned you what bothered you what you needed to see what you weren't happy with um and I did tell the staff today and I named him I said this one isn't happy about this this one isn't happy about that this one is so that means we've done a good job

because nobody is absolutely happy we took we took what what we had and we put together what we felt like um was a good compromise for all of the the wants and the needs that you all have so are we 100% happy with where we are we are not but it's because we know we know that we couldn't do everything we wanted to do in this budget um and and we wanted to make sure we minimized the property tax rate increase um but I do want to to thank you all for still being respectful in how you expressed your concerns disappointments and what you were unhappy with I still feel like we are good friends and I'm still looking forward to working with you all like you said commissioner Jacobs this is just the beginning but I'm looking forward to working with you all as we navigate this next um this upcoming fiscal year thank you all so much for your help with this m m uh we okay final comment from um

commissioner Howton and then we will go into adjournment I have something else I want to mention it has nothing to do with the budget process if we finished with that I I want to lift up something else there is one item that I'd like to for us to be able to when we once we get through this to get on the uh on our agenda for a presentation and that is um Zao Temple um this is a land deal that our um folks from Raleigh to Durham is undertaking and I would like for it to come to this board and for them to be able to do a presentation um and uh either August September if we could get that on the board on on the agenda

this is the last comment because we we and I hear you and we will we will discuss that in leadership meeting that didn't need to be brought up now and what yeah I I I would I that's what I would like to say is I think that we it's fine to have presentations but in the kind of climate we're in right now financially I think a presentation a week you talk we talking about presentations are fine ladies ladies talking about presentation that I would like to come to the board for to be so that the these are Community people uh that they want to have some discussion in front of this board thank you it is noted and we will go to leadership and talk about that and find the best time to do it since this has absolutely nothing to do with the budget I will call this meeting before uh Mr Mayor I'm looking at you I I'm look you got a black son when I'm not here I need to lift heavy I see an affirmative nod I'mma

hold you to that this meeting is adjourned